Nanny Piggins and the Race to Power 8 (24 page)

‘Nanny Piggins, what are you doing?’ asked Derrick between mouthfuls of treacle tart that his nanny was hand-feeding him. ‘Those cakes aren’t free, you are going to have to pay for them.’

‘You must have eaten three or four hundred dollars’ worth of cake,’ worried Samantha.

‘It will be worth every penny,’ said Nanny Piggins, licking shredded coconut from her snout. ‘I never knew the democratic process involved cake! Otherwise I would have taken up politics much earlier.’

‘Do you have three or four hundred dollars?’ asked Michael.

‘No,’ admitted Nanny Piggins, ‘but I’ll write the school an IOU and then pay them back when I become mayor. Being mayor is an important job so I’m sure it comes with a cake allowance.’

‘I don’t think it does,’ said Derrick.

‘Then the very first thing I’ll do when I’m elected is give everyone in the town a cake allowance!’ declared Nanny Piggins.

‘Hooray!’ cried everyone in the queue.

Nanny Piggins rejoined the line and slowly snaked her way to the front where she could get her name marked off the electoral roll and receive her ballot paper.

‘Name?’ said the electoral worker at the front of the queue.

‘My name is Sarah Matahari Lorelei Piggins,’ declared Nanny Piggins, ‘and I am the world’s greatest flying pig.’

‘Piggins,’ said the electoral worker. ‘How do you spell that? With a P?’

‘How else would you spell Piggins?’ asked Michael.

‘Michael,’ chided Nanny Piggins, ‘you must never be rude to someone who doesn’t know how to spell. You should be envious that their head isn’t filled with so much twaddle and claptrap.’

‘You’re not here,’ said the electoral worker.

‘Yes I am,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’m standing right in front of you.’

‘No, you’re not on the electoral roll,’ said the electoral worker. ‘There are no Pigginses.’

‘That is an outrage!’ denounced Nanny Piggins. ‘How dare you exclude me.’

‘Nanny Piggins,’ said Samantha, an unpleasant idea beginning to dawn. ‘You did register to vote, didn’t you?’

‘Whatgister to do what-what?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Register to vote,’ said Samantha. ‘If you want to vote, you have to fill in a form and register yourself on the electoral roll.’

‘You mean I have to voluntarily put myself on a government list?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Yes,’ said the children.

‘As if I would ever do that!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘When the government comes looking for me, I’m hardly going to make it easy for them by registering myself and my address on a list.’

‘All citizens have to,’ said Derrick.

‘Ah, well there you go,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘that’s why I never did it. Because I’m not a citizen either.’

‘You’re not a citizen?!’ exclaimed Derrick.

‘Of course not,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’m a pig. We like to live like gypsies, independent from society’s structures.’

‘But what on earth made you think you could run for mayor if you’re not even a citizen?’ wailed Samantha.

‘What are you saying?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘I can’t run for mayor just because the government has no record of my existence? Well, that’s very nitpicky of them. Surely they wouldn’t be so petty.’

‘I think people in government like being petty,’ said Boris. ‘They’re good at it.’

‘It’ll be fine,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘All of you will just have to make sure you vote for me twice.’

The children looked at each other.

‘Er . . .’ said Derrick, not knowing how he was going to explain what he had to explain without getting yelled at. ‘No-one can vote twice. That’s how the system works. Everyone gets one vote.’

‘What? Even beautiful people on television and people who make chocolate for a living?!’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Yes,’ said Samantha.

‘Now that doesn’t seem fair,’ argued Nanny Piggins. ‘That someone as accomplished and important as Hans the baker should only get one vote, just the same as someone as useless and insignificant as Headmaster Pimplestock.’

‘Also,’ said Derrick bravely, ‘we can’t vote because we are children. You have to be over 18 to vote.’

‘No!’ gasped Nanny Piggins. ‘But how do they know how old you are? It’s rude to ask a lady’s age!’

‘They’re the government,’ said Michael. ‘They just know.’

‘This is precisely why I never register anything with them,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘So you’re saying none of us can vote?’

‘Actually,’ said Boris, looking a little sheepish, ‘I can.’

‘But you’re Russian,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Technically I’m a duel citizen,’ said Boris. ‘I studied the electoral process at law school and it sounded like a lot of fun so I took up citizenship so I could join in.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘The day I did it was the day your chocolate sponge cake went flat in the oven,’ explained Boris.

Nanny Piggins let out one loud sob before she managed to contain her emotions. ‘That was a dark day,’ she whispered.

‘I know,’ said Boris. ‘You were devastated. I didn’t like to bother you with my national allegiances.’

‘Well hurry up and vote for me, because Mr Green is definitely going to vote for Mr Green and Mayor Bloomsbridge is definitely going to vote for Mayor Bloomsbridge so we need you to counteract their votes,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘All right,’ said Boris. ‘I brought along a honey sandwich so I could have a little picnic in the booth while I was voting.’

‘Good thinking,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘It would be awful if you got low blood sugar, your vision went blurry and you accidentally voted for Mr Green.’

So Boris disappeared into the little cardboard booth with his ballot paper and studiously filled it out.

‘It’s a shame we ate all the cake at the cake stall,’ said Nanny Piggins as they stood waiting for him to finish. ‘I’m feeling a little peckish.’

When five minutes stretched into ten minutes and then fifteen, Nanny Piggins began to get restless.

‘I don’t want to pressure my brother,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘but he does seem to be taking an inordinately long time to vote. There are only three names on the ballot. Even allowing for a little break to eat his honey sandwich, I don’t see what could be taking him so long.’

‘Perhaps he’s fallen into one of his super-deep hibernation sleeps?’ guessed Samantha.

‘I doubt it,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘It’s not cold enough. Besides, he got a full fifteen hours of sleep last night so he should be perky enough.’

‘Do you want me to go and see if he’s all right?’ asked Michael.

‘You’re not meant to interfere with someone while they’re voting,’ said Derrick.

‘I’ll whisper so that I don’t distract him,’ said Michael.

So Michael walked over to Boris and squeezed between his legs. (Boris was so big and the voting booth was so small, he almost entirely filled it up. The only way for Michael to talk to Boris was to get down on his hands and knees, crawl between his legs, then pull himself up on the voting shelf where they could have a conversation.)

Michael disappeared from view for several seconds before reappearing, by crawling back out through Boris’ legs.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘He’s stuck,’ explained Michael. ‘The booth is so small that he has wedged himself in and now he can’t get out. And he’s quite upset because he thinks the booth is shrinking because he can’t see how else it could have possibly happened.’

‘He does realise that he is a great big ten-foot-tall Kodiak bear and that the voting booth is just made of cardboard?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘I did point that out,’ said Michael, ‘but he says he doesn’t want to damage anything in case they won’t invite him back to vote next time.’

‘I’ll get him out of there,’ said Nanny Piggins with a steely glint in her eye.

She walked over and stood directly behind her brother before shrieking, ‘Aaaaaaaggggghhhhhhh!!!!! Mouse!!!’

Boris exited the voting booth directly upwards because he leapt so high in the air. Luckily Nanny Piggins then stepped out of the way, otherwise he would have landed on her when he came down with an enormous thud.

‘Where?!’ panicked Boris. ‘Oooh, I do so hate mice. Then are so mean and bitey. And they eat my honey sandwiches.’

‘It’s all right. It’s gone now,’ said Nanny Piggins as she gave her brother a comforting hug. ‘So now, all we have to do is wait for the polls to close and the results to be announced. I believe it is customary to wait in a public place where there are plenty of refreshments available, preferably cakey ones.’

‘Did you have somewhere in mind?’ asked Derrick.

‘I thought perhaps Hans’ Bakery,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Ooooh, can I have a slice of cake?’ asked Boris.

‘We’ll have many, many slices of cake,’ declared Nanny Piggins. ‘After all, the polls don’t close for another five hours, then it will take them at least ten minutes to see that I’m the clear winner. And I can eat a lot of cake in five hours and ten minutes.’

‘And you don’t think it will affect your ability to be mayor, the fact that you aren’t registered to vote or even a citizen of this country?’ asked Michael as they turned to leave.

‘Not at all,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’m sure nobody can be bothered checking such tedious things, so how would they ever find out?’

Unfortunately at that very moment Nanny Piggins came face-to-face with her answer, because Mr Green was standing right behind them, and from the joyous expression on his face he looked as though he had just got the biggest tax return of his life.

‘You aren’t a registered citizen?!’ he exclaimed.

Nanny Piggins did momentarily consider lying (which I know is wicked of her, but it really is Mr Green’s fault for bringing out the worst in her). ‘Technically, no,’ she admitted.

‘You aren’t going to do anything about it, are you, Father?’ asked Michael naively. He knew the answer before his father even spoke, because Mr Green’s eyes were bugging out of his head from excitement.

‘You aren’t a registered citizen!’ he declared again.

‘Yes, we’ve covered that,’ said Nanny Piggins with a sigh. ‘You really are the most tedious person to hold a conversation with.’

‘Who do I tell first?’ asked Mr Green. Not that he was talking to anyone else, he was more babbling to himself with hysterical glee. ‘The newspapers? The television reporters? The electoral authorities? Oooh, I know! I’ll hold a press conference.’

‘Please, Father,’ pleaded Samantha. ‘Don’t do that. Nanny Piggins would make a wonderful mayor. Much better than you. On some level you must know that.’

‘I know no such thing,’ said Mr Green. ‘She is a pig. At least I’m a human.’

‘A sorry example of one,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Surely it’s better to have the world’s greatest flying pig be mayor as opposed to the town’s most mediocre tax lawyer.’

But Mr Green was not listening. He rarely did when people less important than him were talking, and he thought most people were less important than him. ‘Maybe they’ll throw her in jail for electoral fraud and I’ll finally be free of the dreadful pig.’

‘How dare you speak about my sister in that way!’ denounced Boris, starting to get angry (which was most unlike him. He usually went straight to weepy, or wracking sobs).

‘Who are you?’ asked Mr Green, not recognising Boris as the bear who had taught him tap dancing or had been living in his garden shed. ‘On second thoughts, don’t tell me. I don’t have time for any of you. I’m off to report this pig to the appropriate authorities.’

Mr Green turned on his heel and hurried out of the room. Nanny Piggins sighed as she watched him go.

‘Does that mean it’s all over?’ asked Samantha.

‘You’re not going to be mayor?’ asked Derrick disbelievingly.

They could not accept that this political journey should be brought to an end by such a small hurdle. They had always assumed that their nanny would win, as she did with everything, and become the best and most successful politician since her great-great-great Aunt Winston Piggins had dressed up as a man and led the allies to victory in World War II.

‘Children,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘If my political career were the only concern here, then yes, I’m afraid this would be it. The end of our journey. But there is something much more serious at stake – Dulsford. The town we live in, our home and our way of life is being threatened by that dreadful man – your father.’

‘Yes, we knew who you were talking about,’ nodded Derrick.

‘And so it is not for me, but the children of Dulsford and the children’s children of Dulsford for whom I shall now take action,’ declared Nanny Piggins.

‘What action?’ asked Michael.

‘I’m going to kidnap your father,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Boris, find a sack.’

‘I already have,’ said Boris, holding up a large hessian sack. ‘I went and found one as soon as I realised he’d overheard us. If you weren’t going to kidnap him, I was.’

‘Let’s do it together,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘It’s always nice to do things as a family.’

And so, an hour later, Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children sat happily in Hans’ Bakery eating cake and watching the election coverage on TV as they awaited the results.

Mr Green was safely locked in Hans’ storage room, which Nanny Piggins reasoned could not be viewed as a hardship. She often dreamed of being locked in Hans’ storeroom, surrounded by all that cake.